Controversy Again as Sherrill Leaves Aggies

By PETER APPLEBOME, Special to the New York Times

Published: December 14, 1988

HOUSTON, Dec. 13—
Jackie Sherrill was hired as the athletic director and football coach at Texas A&M in 1982 amid a barrage of controversy and was given the mission of turning the long-suffering Aggies into winners.

He took A&M to the Cotton Bowl three straight years and compiled a 53-27-1 record, but when he resigned Monday, his going was as rancorous as his coming. Officials at the school and the Southwest Conference, while withholding judgment on an accusation of hush-money payments that precipitated his departure, said his resignation may help mark the end of a scandal-plagued era in the conference's history.

''I think when you look at the broad picture, I think we're moving from one era to another,'' said Fred Jacoby, the commissioner of the Southwest Conference. ''When you have changes in your personal or professional life, it gives you the opportunity to make changes, and I think we're going through a cleansing process now.'' Period of Turmoil

Sherrill's tenure coincided with the most tumultuous period in the conference's history. Six of the nine conference schools found themselves under probation or investigation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for recruiting violations. To some critics, the heightened competitive pressures began when Sherrill was given a six-year, $1.72 million contract in a process carried out largely by trustees outside normal institutional channels.

Texas A&M's trustees today were standing staunchly behind Sherrill.

''We hate to see Sherrill go,'' said Royce Wisenbaker Sr., a member of the school's Board of Regents. ''He's been a great asset to Texas A&M. I'm sure various and sundry things were done that he knew nothing about, but he's gentleman enough to stand up and take the punishment.''

But without criticizing Sherrill, the university's president, William H. Mobley, and the new head coach, R. C. Slocum, at a news conference today in College Station, vowed new vigilance in following N.C.A.A. regulations.

''I'll have it in my contract and my coaches' also that if we violate any rules, we'll be terminated,'' Slocum said. Criticism for Sherrill

Sherrill came under fire in September when the N.C.A.A. put the football program on two years' probation for a series of recruiting violations. Two months later, a former A&M football player, George Smith, told The Dallas Morning News he had been paid hush money by Sherrill in exchange for keeping quiet about violations at the school.

Smith, at a news conference arranged by the university, later retracted his accusations, but the school is holding its own investigation and the controversy dogged Sherrill to the point that he stepped down. He has denied making any improper payments to Smith.

Sherrill's tenure has evoked heated reactions from its start. He was hired in 1982 after being recuited by university regents, not long after Frank Vandiver, then the president, gave a public vote of confidence to Tom Wilson, the coach at the time. Since then, Sherrill has feuded with the Texas news media and at times with other coaches. Question of Priorities

When Sherrill was hired, for one of the top compensation packages in college football, Vandiver worried that the way the hiring was done had sent out distressing messages about the school's priorities.

''We look as though we put the cart before the horse, that we have decided to become a great football power, and thus we bring down some ridicule upon ourselves,'' he said in 1982.

Texas A&M has made enormous strides as a university since then, but Sherrill's painful departure is raising many of the same issues raised by his hiring.

Vandiver, now president emeritus and the director of A&M's Mosher Institute for Defense Studies, said that he has come to respect Sherrill and that Sherrill did an excellent job of enhancing academic standards for athletes. But, while saying the N.C.A.A.'s guidelines needed updating, he said that the scandals throughout the conference continue to highlight the disproportionate role played by big-time athletics. Hoping for Perspective

''I keep hoping the general malaise that has stalked the Southwest Conference has in some way helped the public put this in some kind of perspective,'' he said. ''You can make football so important that it tends to dominate the academic side of a campus. A&M is not alone in this. It's a national trend at major universities. I don't think it's any worse in the Southwest Conference. It may be more lurid, but I don't think it's any worse.''

Wayne Showers, an A&M regent, denied that football has become too important at A&M.

''Let's face it, modern collegiate athletics does not fit into the same mold as it did 25 or 30 years ago,'' he said. ''It generates important income for other things on campus and it can bring very important publicity. Jackie Sherrill took us to three Cotton Bowls and beat archrival Texas five times in a row. How can you measure the good publicity you get from that?''